Posted by
John Caile on Friday, October 17, 2008 4:09:56 PM
When Barack Obama confirmed his Socialist mindset in his now famous remark to Joe the Plumber, Joe missed a golden opportunity. When the Senator told Joe that he didn't wish to punish him, but merely wanted to "spread the wealth around" Joe could have scored a political knock-out had he simply responded "but, Senator, it's not YOUR wealth to spread around - it's OURS."
Not that this is a revelation. An inherent element of being a liberal today is to be extravagantly generous - with other people's money. And no matter how they try to deny it, this sort of taking from the successful and productive in order to give to the unsuccessful and unproductive is coincidentally a foundational principal of Marxist socialism.
Note also that liberals often have an almost visceral hatred of "the rich" - although their hostility is rather selectively applied. For example, Hollywood celebrities, thug Rap stars, and others who get paid outlandish amounts of money for arguably frivolous activities are A-OK with liberals.
But not Joe, who simply wants to build a business. Or someone in the corporate world who puts himself (or herself) through college, climbs the ladder by making endless personal and family sacrifices, and then finally gets "rewarded" with a 70 or 80 hour work week (average for senior executives). No, their accomplishment's will be minimized by describing them as "lucky" or "winners of life's lottery." Why? Because in order to justify having the government steal the very food out of someone's mouth (which the fruits of our labor genuinely are) it is helpful to portray them as not having earned it in the first place.
And it doesn't end there. Both Joe and our corporate warrior will be demonized as somehow contributing to the plight of those less "fortunate" than they are. After all, if you can also blame the condition of "the poor" on the very same "rich guys" you intend to rob, so much the better. But contrary to the views of many on the Left, success is not a zero-sum game - Joe's success does not require that anyone else give up anything. On the contrary, his prosperity will produce jobs and income, not only for his employees, but for his suppliers and all of their employees as well.
But truth be damned, class warfare rhetoric supplies the excuse for "leveling the playing field." However, in America, it's always the players, not the field, who make the difference. And the fact is that the vast majority of successful people got where they are because of the choices they made. They are simply smarter, more ambitious, more hard working, and more willing to do what it takes to get what they want than most people.
And they take risks. The capacity for risk is a key element in achieving success. Those who are afraid to take chances will never be rich - they're more likely to take the "safe" route of collecting a paycheck from someone else.
It is equally true that most losers are where they are because of the choices they made. If you drop out of high school, do drugs, join a gang, get pregnant (or get someone else pregnant) at age 17, refuse to learn a skill or a trade, refuse to take a menial job because it's "beneath" you, and when you finally do get a job you have a lousy or non-existent work ethic, well, guess what? You're likely to have a tough time in life.
And if you also believe that in spite of making all of those bad choices, your fellow hard working citizens owe you a certain standard of living, then you're living in the wrong country. Because America is, at least for now, a Constitutional democratic republic, based on free-market capitalism, with equal OPPORTUNITY for all, but NOT guaranteed equal outcomes. But hey, if sucking at the government teat really does appeal to you, I hear Cuba has "free" healthcare AND education.
Then again, you may want to hang around America for just a while longer - with a whole cadre of Marxist/Socialist Democrats poised to take over Congress and perhaps the Presidency, it may not be long before they get their greedy little fingers on the paychecks of Joe the Plumber, and the millions like him who are the backbone of the American economy.
And losers will be sitting pretty...but only for a while.